The truth about surviving the suicide of my 41 year old husband, raising our 3 kids alone, getting robbed and kidnapped the morning of the funeral (seriously, this really happened), and learning how to really LIVE, and even LAUGH, in spite of it all.

April 30, 2012

I met a girl in the grocery store the other day.She was missing some fingers.She was trying to open a bag, so of course I
snatched it and opened it for her, and gave her a big smile.She had some kind of contraption on her hand,
and she mumbled something about her fingers.I was sans kids and actually aware of my
surroundings, so I asked her what happened.When she answered me, I thought I would fall down right there.All the air left my body, and I got
dizzy.Because as the words came out of
her mouth, I suddenly knew what she was going to say, before she even said
it.She had HIB.Not HIV…but HIB.Haemophilus Influenza Type B.Our kids are vaccinated for this disease
now.But we weren’t.I know this….because I had HIB too.And you never meet anyone else who’s ever had
it.I know of only one other relative of
a friend who has had it.She is a young
mom of several kids, and she is missing both hands.Haemophilis actually means “blood loving”, so
it gets into your bloodstream and causes either sepsis or meningitis.In my case, I was entering my 2nd
trimester of pregnancy, with a baby that was to be born between my oldest and
my middle darling.I think I was 15
weeks pregnant, already showing and wearing maternity clothes, and already
feeling the first flutters in my belly.Then suddenly, I woke up one morning with the worst sore throat
ever.It was unbearable.I remember laying in bed, drooling on my
pillow, because I simply could not swallow.The pain was ridiculous.I was
spraying chloroseptic in my throat every 5 minutes and living with cough drops
in my mouth.I was gargling with salt
water and Listerine…anything to stop the pain.A couple days later I woke up and my throat was completely better.Only I felt like I had the flu.The worst flu ever.I went to the doctor.I remember laying down in the waiting
room.I couldn’t even sit up.What the fuck was wrong with me?I was freaked out about the baby.They listened for the heartbeat on the
dopplar and couldn’t find it.I panicked.I called Dave while I was waiting for the
u/s.I felt so horrible, I didn’t think
I could drive home, and I was pretty convinced the baby was dead.Thankfully, the u/s showed the little baby to
be fine.They told me I had the flu, and
sent me home saying to take Tylenol and drink as much water as possible.I did that.Religiously.Only I began to
notice after a day or two that the Tylenol wasn’t working…it wasn’t bringing
the fever down.And then I started
spotting.My O.B. sent me to the E.R. The E.R. worked me up and actually tried to
send me home, saying maybe I had bronchitis.I remember the E.R. doc calling my O.B. and saying he was sending me
home.I remember him hanging up and then
ordering more tests.My O.B. saved my
life that night…by insisting something else was really wrong with me.They sent me to a room and did a pelvic
exam.I remember the doctor’s demeanor
when his hand was still inside me and he said, “It’s coming from your
uterus.”I looked at Dave and said, “This
isn’t good.Something is very wrong.”My blood pressure was low, my pulse was
high.Blood tests revealed over the next
couple hours that my white blood count was over 40,000.I remember hearing the doctor outside the
door gasp, and say “She’s very sick.” Not knowing yet what was causing the
illness, I was given a dose of broad spectrum antibiotics.My entire body went into some kind of
shock.I turned beet red, started
sweating profusely, and was so thirsty I thought I would die on the spot.I asked for water.They were busy and said they would get
it.I waited all of five seconds before
I started screaming.These fuckers did
not understand, I felt like I had walked across the Sahara Desert.The lavatory in the room did not work, of course.I was about to start licking people, I needed
water so badly.I finally got some and
they asked me for a urine specimen.Only
I couldn’t pee.They catheterized me,
and nothing came out.But my bladder was
full.I could feel it, and so could the
nurse.I remember the look on her face,
she knew something was wrong.I did
too.I kept looking at Dave and saying,
“The baby cannot be surviving this, there is no way.”Surreal.I was wheeled up to the maternity floor, the same floor that I delivered
the first darling.I knew I wasn’t
coming home with a baby.I suddenly
hated everyone there, all the baby noises, the flowers, the happiness.I don’t think I slept that night.How could I?What the fuck was happening to me? The next day was uneventful and we
were still somewhat hopeful that things might be ok.I didn’t sleep that night, because I didn’t
want to die in my sleep.Sometime during
the next day they identified the bacteria, and things got serious.Antibiotics were changed, a picc line was
inserted into my arm and I started to realize that the baby was really going to
die, and if she didn’t, there would be a world and a lifetime of trouble.I spotted a chart next to my bed identifying
the dosage as ‘life threatening’.Christ, I’m fucking dying.I
didn’t sleep that night either.I was
too scared to sleep.I knew that if I
closed my eyes, I would die.I was that
sick.The next day, my water broke, and
what came out did not look normal.The
nurses tried to convince me that maybe it was something to do with the
weirdness going on with my bladder.I
knew what it was.I’d already had a
baby.I felt the familiar pop, and the
gush.And I knew my baby was dying.They wanted to do an u/s, so they could tell
me the sex of the baby.I told them I
didn’t want to know.In my mind, I had
already decided the baby was a girl, and her name was Ashley.We had only picked out a girl’s name.The pregnancy felt so different than the
first darling’s had, and truthfully I was never sick a day with any of my
boys.This pregnancy had me sick every
day for the whole 15 weeks.When they
confirmed that it was indeed my water that had broken, Dave cried.I’ve only seen him cry with the births of our
babies.I guess he only cries for
babies.When they are born, and when
they die.They wheeled me up for a
D&C, and my O.B. wasn’t there to do it.The female doctor, who went on to deliver my next two babies, had to do
it, and she was five months pregnant.I
felt horrible, knowing what she was about to do.She was basically performing an
abortion.Cutting up a fetus, and
removing it.While pregnant.We both cried afterwards.I cried for her, and she cried for me.My uterus bore the brunt of the infection,
the blood loving bacteria flocked to the most vascular part of my body.I have the skills of my current O.B. to thank
that I ever went on to have 2 more kids.They told me later that the baby probably saved my life.Her life, for mine.Her life, for my bladder and kidneys.Her life, for my limbs. I stayed in the hospital a week.After a few days I sent Dave home to stay with
the oldest darling.The nurses stayed
with me.All night.They gave me medicine to sleep, only I
wouldn’t.I couldn’t.I was so convinced I was dying.They stroked me and talked to me and
convinced me to sleep.Convinced me I
wouldn’t die.I could tell which ones
were coming and going during the night, because one of them smoked and one of
them smelled like gardenias. I had weird
neck pain and a headache, which necessitated a whole flurry of activity, because
HIB can cause your throat to swell and suffocate you.I couldn’t get out of bed to have any tests,
I was too weak.They brought some huge
ass machine in and did tests right there.By day 5, I had slept some and was getting better.By day 7, I was released with a home health
nurse, to come and do the rocephin injections for the next 2 weeks into my picc
line.I went home with a tube hanging
out of my arm.I looked like a heroin
addict for a solid year.I was so anemic
and had lost so much blood I could barely hold my head up.I was depressed and pathetic, and stayed that
way a long time. A few months ago
someone told me they had visions of Dave, rocking a baby, and calling her
Ashley.No one knew we had named her
that.I had only ever written it on a
piece of paper, over and over….Ashley Marie….in fancy letters.

April 29, 2012

I’ve been thinking the last few days about how without Dave in
the picture anymore, my kids have only me to emulate.I guess that can be good and bad.I
asked the baby why he didn’t eat his waffles this morning and he said, “Because
I hate them!”That is just so me.For all of Dave’s shortcomings, he did have
many endearing qualities.He was a very
calm person.He didn’t get rattled easily.When he was healthy, I would freak out about
things, and he would calm me down by declaring that everything would be
ok.It was comforting.He wasn’t a dramatic person.We were complete opposites in that way.I’m so verbal.That voice in your head that stops you from
saying certain things….I really don’t have that.And it makes it impossible for me to be a
liar.Dave had that voice…and he was a
man of few words.And a lot of them were
lies.

Today we were outside all day.I told the darlings there would be no tv, no
video games, no wii.Our days are so
much better like this.We have a
bathroom downstairs off the patio, and I walked in to find an unflushed mess and
loads of toilet paper filling the whole bowl.Only when I bent over to flush, already worried it was way too much tp
and envisioning the hot plumber’s muscles, I noticed it wasn’t tp at all.It was Clorox wipes.Like 10 of them.One of these little darlings has wiped their
ass with Clorox wipes.Great.

So I call all the darlings, in such a way
that surely they know there is trouble.I’m
so great at disguising my feelings, right?
They sulk over and I asked who did this.Of course none of them did it.So then I say if someone doesn’t speak up,
you’ll all be punished.The two older
darlings then blamed the baby, who wears a diaper, for shitting and wiping with
Clorox wipes.This is annoying.So I say that whoever wiped their ass with Clorox
wipes is probably going to get cancer
on their ass, because the wipes are poison.There is only silence.The older darling is alarmed.I can tell right away he thinks he has
cancer.

He has inherited Dave’s liar
gene, and he suddenly admits that he did in fact poo, but didn’t put all those
wipes in there.I’m struck immediately
by how much he looks like Dave in this moment.So I calmly asked what he used to wipe.I know for a fact we were out of tp down there, because I was on the
patio last night with a friend and used the last of it.Silence.He then says he checked his butt, and didn’t need to wipe.Really.I suppress my laughter and ask him to show me how he can see his butt.Because
I can’t see mine. He smirks and knows
he is caught.For punishment, he has to
reach in and pull all the wipes out.We
discuss the difference between Clorox wipes and the regular flushable wipes we
use to wipe our butts with.(People,
please tell me you use wipes!Because if
you stepped in dogshit in your yard, you would not simply wipe it off with
toilet paper.)

I’m
suddenly in a panic that my kid is a liar.I flash forward to his teen years, and I’m chasing him through the
streets with the police.He’s strung out
on drugs and all he does is lie.Fuck
you Dave, for never learning to tell the fucking truth.

This is what I’ve learned about lying, from
living with a liar. Lying is about not
being able to accept failure.And people
need to be allowed to fail.I fucking
fail every day at something.And every
day it’s a new opportunity to learn how to do it better tomorrow.I didn’t scream at him.I don’t want him to be afraid to fail.More and more, I see how our responses to
stress define who we are.If you can’t
fail, then you already have.And you’re
not even out the gate.If I am nothing, nothing, then I am at least honest.I’ve been called ‘honest to a fault’ many times.And I despise a liar as much as
anything.I don’t really know another
way to be.I don’t know what happened to make me this
way.Maybe I’ve just failed so much that
I’ve learned to embrace it.To laugh at
it.To look at it as a gift.Because it can be.Because every failure is an opportunity.And I’m an opportunist.Life is less work that way.Ya hurd me?

April 25, 2012

We are in the planning stages of another alter ego
night.This one is highly anticipated,
because it will be on the weekend and my strict instructions to this month’s
planner were: “I need to dance and cut loose in a big way!”It’s so hard to get all these VIPs together in one room.You
know, the muthas are very powerful, and we are even in awe of our own
power.Last month, we went to a local
dive bar where a fairly famous musician was playing.We are truly blessed, in this city, to have
awesome music and food on demand 24/7.We are not talking about regular food and music either.We are talking about the fact that our ‘just
regular’ places have food and music that rivals everywhere else’s ‘awesome
places’.Anyway, I arrived late on
account of the poo bubbling up from my shower and tub…if you remember, I had
the hot plumber hostage at my house.The
muthas told me when I got there that the ‘famous musician’ had already approached
a particular mutha, and said, “Don’t I know you?”to which she batted her pretty li’l eyelashes and responded, “You could know me.” She was being serious. Mmm-kay…are you digging the awesomeness?Me too.So the night goes on, there is drinking and cackling and this particular
mutha leaves first.The remaining muthas
then decide to write a note on a napkin that says:“Name of famous musician: You could know me and then phone number
of the cute, newly divorced mutha”.It was
just a joke, only we forget whilst drinking exactly how powerful we are, and said
joke was left for famous musician.And
guess what?You already know what,
because we control the universe.Famous
musician texts cute mutha THREE TIMES the next day.Unfortunately, this story did not end with a
fabulous patio party at my house where famous musician serenaded us with his
sexy voice all night long, as we had planned.No, instead we found out famous musician is married, so, because we are
so awesome, we don’t think he is as cool because now we know he’s a cheater.Here’s a little info for the manly men:cheating is not sexy.We are not fans of it in any way, shape or
form.In fact, if you cheat on one of
the muthas, the rest of us will bring you great cosmic harm, so please do not
fuck with us in any way, ever.

I received an email yesterday that some of the co-authors of
Chicken Soup For the Soul are
gathering contributions for a more modern version of Soup.She asked if I would submit my blog post from
yesterday. The new anthology is called Not Your Mother’s Book, and like Chicken
Soup, will branch off into other sub-categories.I submitted a couple entries last night, but
got sidetracked when I noticed that one is slated to be called “Girls Night Out”.So I quickly submitted this, as it’s one of
my favorite ‘going out’ stories of all time.The setting is Club LaVela, arguably the largest nightclub in all of the
south.It’s in Panama City Beach, FL,
where I lived for about 10 years when I was 20 something.Most
people in the South know this club.We
knew it a little bit too well because we lived on the Beach.It was always full of beautiful people.I was there with my best friend one night and
we were just hanging out.Before we left
to go out to the club, she had changed her shirt like 10 times.She couldn’t get comfortable.Late into the night, it was getting hotter in the club, and truly the
night had been pretty innocent until this point.All of a sudden I look at her, and she is
taking off her shirt!! What the FUCK??!! She is now sitting across from me in
her bra?Girl, what the fuck are you doing?Innocent eyes looking back at me…she’s not
understanding my surprise.Simultaneously,
guys from every direction are tapping their buddies and rushing towards us like
she’s about to get totally naked or something.I was not sure at this moment she wasn’t.I was confused.I had to shout above the music, “Why did you
take off your shirt?”She responds only,
“I was hot!” Further confusion. A few seconds go by. So then I say, “You’re in
your bra!”At first she didn’t even get
what I was saying.She thought she had
two shirts on.She wasn’t wearing what
she thought she was wearing. She looks down at her boobs, and just starts laughing. Hysterically. We all are. My friend
is one cool mutha.She was not embarrassed
in the least, which is why she’s my friend.We probably spent the rest of the night teasing the guys that she would
do it again.

April 20, 2012

A friend recently brought up the fact that I don’t mention
the robbery very much.It made me
realize how little the robbery has truly affected me, in the grand scheme of
things.The first post on this blog is
called “Seriously, this really happened” and it’s my account of the armed
robbery and kidnapping which occurred on the morning of my husband’s funeral.

There’s an element of this that I’ve only shared with a few
people, because I don’t want to be burned at the stake for being a witch.But I’ve been thinking aboutthe significance of it lately.You see, before Dave died, for a few months
actually, I kept having what I would call ‘daydreams’ about a black man walking
into my bedroom to rob me.I kept trying
to figure out what I would do if this really happened.In this premonition, he was armed, I was caught off guard, and he confronted
me in the bedroom.It turned out this is
exactly how it did happen.

What I decided every time after having one of these premonitions,
was that I would trick the dumbass robber by pretending that I knew he was coming.So here’s dumbass thug, who is a low life,
robbing innocent people for a living.He
sneaks into my house, confronts me and asks for money.He’s prepared for me to be scared out of my
mind.Start rushing around the house for
money.Only I say…”Damn, dude, I knew
someone was coming to pick up this cash, but you are seriously not even going
to knock on the door?I got $1,500, you
can tell that asshole there will be more as long as he keeps up his end of the
deal.”It is possible I watched too much
gangsta tv in my younger days, before kids.Now, I realize this is bizarre and people may be questioning my
sanity.I have no clue why this tape
played in my head, often, during those last few months.When it did, I thought I was just being
a weirdo, and I made up my part each time and convinced myself it would
work.I figured it would catch the guy
so off guard, he wouldn’t know wtf to say.$1,500 is a damn good score for somebody who probably entered my house thinking
they are getting $200.He certainly
wouldn’t say “what the fuck are you talking about?”and he certainly wouldn’t be freaked out when
I opened the safe to get the money.But
when I reached in there and pulled out a gun instead of $1,500 and blew his
motherfucking head off, well, I guess he would have been surprised then.But that’s how it went down in my head.Months went by before I
even remembered about those premonitions. In fact, it’s only been in the last few months
that I even remembered them.

The other thing that is bizarre is that when this guy walked
into my bedroom, for real, I incorrectly assumed he was connected to Dave
somehow.I think that is why I wasn’t
really scared of him.That, and the
fact that I was already fully numbed and protected by the element of
shock.If you’ve ever survived a truly
traumatic experience, like a death that comes out of nowhere, then you know
what I’m talking about.Your mind is in
survivor mode.Because you know you really
might not survive this.I was already
at the point of the most extreme overload one can achieve, so getting robbed by
some punk ass in my bedroom for a few hundred dollars, well, it didn’t even register. Didn’t
even hit my fucking radar.Try that
shit magnet on for size.

The reason I thought he had something to do with Dave is
because after Dave died, they gave me his phone.Full access to the phone I was always
sneaking around trying to get.I knew something
was up with Dave in the end, and damn, I couldn’t figure it out to save my
life.Or his.In the end, he was pretty careful, bringing
the phone in the bathroom with him and never leaving it exposed.On the rare occasions when I got to it, there
was nothing.Nothing there.No trail. But after he died, he got a text message from a guy named
Jerome saying only, “I got 40 blues.”I
didn’t know wtf 40 blues were, but I knew they were pills and I knew right then
and there what his shtick was.Bam.I called the guy right away.Told him what happened.Said it’s not your fault, but I’m trying to
piece together what is going on, and the guy said, “You know, Mr. Dave, he
liked those vicodin.”People have told
me that vicodin are not blue.All I
know is that whatever he took, he abused, and the end result was that he was so
depressed and withdrawn that he wanted to die.Pharmacy records later revealed he was also being prescribed 190 percocet a
month.I made him go to the doctor that
last week.Told him something was wrong
with him, he looked like shit, I couldn’t take it anymore, and he just needed
to be well.He did go.Only instead of walking in there and saying
he was depressed or anxious, he went in and told the doctor he ‘couldn’t
concentrate at work’.So he was
prescribed adderrall.That’s right, a 41
year old man with no history of ADD just declared himself ADD and walked out
with pills.And so, on top of his
major depression caused by pain pill addiction, he got adderrall and took way
too much and, well, the rest you all know.

Those guys who robbed us went on to hit five other homes in our neighborhood in the following months, before finally getting caught. They are currently in jail and last I heard were being charged with kidnapping, which is a federal offense. Turns out their m.o. was that they were watching for people who were going in and out of their homes, usually smokers, knowing they weren't locking doors every time they went in/out.

The ironic thing about all this is that I’ve only slept a
few nights in this house without a loaded gun.And that was only because the police confiscated my revolver after Dave
used it to commit suicide. And during
one of those nights, I was robbed at gunpoint. I should also add here that our front door was
not locked, so we basically should have just put out a sign that said “Take
what you need.”I’m one of those people
that doesn’t believe that only the bad guys should have guns.I was raised by a man who hunts. Growing up, my friends described my dad as
Daniel Boone.He led packs of
businessmen through Montana every year on hunting trips.He always fished and hunted.We grew up with guns.We knew gun safety.When I moved out, my dad kissed me goodbye
and handed me a loaded .38 that he won in a poker game.Think it was an old police revolver.The police have it back now, because we never
went to get it and certainly don’t want it now. I have 3 little boys in this
house who aren’t exactly being raised in the environment that I was raised
in.So my gun is kept in a finger print
safe.Only my fingerprint can open the
safe. It can be kept loaded that way,
too. This is a brilliant
invention and if you have a gun and kids you absolutely are a fuck up if you don't have this. I have a cousin who lost a child to a gun accident, so I am sensitive to this issue. And of course we always lock
our doors now, have a security system, and use it even when we leave only for 5
minutes.

April 18, 2012

My intentions yesterday were so good.I purposely blogged about finishing my 2010
taxes, so that officially I would feel like an asshole for not doing them.And then I was going to really do them, and
declare myself awesome.For reals. So, I marched back to the office, and started
digging in.I felt pretty good, except
that I couldn’t find shit.I’m a little
nervous that I might have gone a little crazy and threw folders I needed
away.I was thinking back to shortly
after Dave died, wondering if I took too much klonopin and just said fuck it
and tossed it?I do that sometimes, if
things get too messy.I go crazy and get
into a trashing frenzy.I don’t even
know if I do it on purpose or by accident, because I’m out my mind
don’t-want-to-look-at-this-shit crazy at the time.About 30 minutes into making 2010 taxes my
bitch, I realize I can’t find any of Dave’s deposit slips.The ones where he wrote where the money came from.I
kind of need that.It’s sort of a big
piece of this, right?I mean, I don’t
want to be paying taxes on deposits that were not income! So I start digging
around.I’m only missing some,not all.Most of this IS done.However, ten
seconds into my dig, I find a letter.From Dave to me.I think it’s
something our marriage therapist asked him to write after one of our
sessions.He’s sorry about hurting me,
doesn’t get why I don’t forgive him, he loves me and wants a good life for us, oh
fucking blah blah blah.It’s the same as
every other letter he’s ever written me, and I want to burn it and him and this
whole fucking house down.Ya hurd me?Fuck this shit!By the way, I haven’t written “Mean Shit Take
III” this month, but in case you were wondering it’s THAT FUCKING TIME OF THE
MONTH FOR ME TO BLAST AWAY AT SHIT I HATE!!!!!!! YA HURD ME?!So I read the letter.Haven’t seen that particular one since he
wrote it years ago.So I stood there and
read it and tears just started falling.Even
though I tried to make them stop.Are
there kegel exercises for the eyes?Something that I can do to stop the tears when I don’t want them?More and more fell, until I was sobbing.Then screaming.Then cursing him out and telling him to fuck
off for pulling a fucking ninja on me.Yes,
well played motherfucker, because just a few minutes prior to this, I was being
a secretly crazy person by talking to him, out loud.Saying stuff like, “Could you just fucking
help me find the deposit slips, because it’s the least you can do, asshole.”So instead of helping me to find the deposit
slips, he secretly put this note in my hands.I don’t like tricks or surprises, so I kicked shit and slammed shit
around and ran into my bedroom like a teenager and cried mascara and probably
$30 worth of makeup off my face.It’s
times like these that I really feel so alone.Because this would be a time when your man
would hold you, say nice shit to you, or you could at least call him at
work.But he is gone.I’m alone.Hug and kiss your people
today!Stroke them!Ok?!‘Cause
I have no one to kiss or hug that is a man, and my fucking taxes are still not
done, and I’m grumpy and grouchy and hating on most everything.I swear today, my taxes will be my
bitch.For real.And I will
be awesome.And one day, someone will hug
me and kiss me and love me.Or I’m kicking all of your asses.So fuck you.

April 17, 2012

You may have
noticed that I talk a lot about being awesome.I think some people are even starting to buy in to my awesome schtick
and feel jealous.This actually cracks
me up, because I am no more awesome than you are, or anyone is.I’m just a girl, trying to figure life out,
and more and more realizing that the awesomeness comes from simply doing the
right thing as much as I can, striving to be better, always, and refusing to be
beat down.I think most of us do
that.Hence, most of us are awesome.The only real difference between me and most
of you is that probably due to the recent ‘incident’, I really, really, really
don’t give a shit at all anymore what anyone thinks or says about me.That’s why I have the courage to blog what
is, in effect, my diary.I’m not all
that sure I ever really did care.But
I’m certain now my persona has been elevated to a place where it was not before.It’s hard to explain.Merely surviving has landed me on higher
ground.However, tax day is upon
us.And it reminds me, over and over, of
what a loser I am.For my entire adult life, I have been an
organized person.My paperwork was filed away in neat folders in an organized file cabinet, just the way I like
it.The basis of my job for years was to organize and manage other company’s disasters.But now, my own life is a disaster, my
paperwork is askew, and I feel, tragically, that I’m allergic to paper.Just touching it makes me miserable.For nine months I have been in avoidance
mode.Simply avoiding all things that stress
me out, at any cost.Dave and I ran two
small businesses out of our home.He was
a contractor, specializing in historic renovations. His business was booming after Hurricane
Katrina. I was the chaos queen.I worked on oil spills, handling finance and
cost management for the spillers.Imagine
my work load two years ago when there was more oil than water in the Gulf of
Mexico.My unpaid job (in addition to
the mommy gig, also known as third job) was to keep us both organized, handle
our finances, scream about money, funnel money from one account to another, pay
bills, handle taxes, etc.Every time we
spoke about money, we fought.Every time
I worked on his books, we fought.At tax
time, we fought.He was a mess.His filing cabinet was the seat of his
truck.He lost receipts and never had a
clue whether he was making money or not.This made me crazy.I fought him
tooth and nail about it for 10 years.Now he’s gone.I’ve filed
extensions for two years in a row.Still
haven’t filed my 2010 taxes.Paid a big
wad of money with the extension in 2010….and have no clue whether it was enough
or not.I might owe them $10 or I might
owe them $10,000.Hell, they might even
owe me money.I don’t know.And, sadly….I don’t care.Because
I don’t want to look at his stuff.Don’t want to touch his stuff.Don’t want to live through any of it anymore.The reason is that the days come alive when I look back at his files, his accounts, his
handwriting, his notes.And I can’t bear
to relive any of those days.I know a monkey is going to jump off my back when I put all this shit to
rest.I know the avoidance and procrastination
weigh me down.I want to be free of
it…but apparently not enough to actually look at it for long periods of time.I’m a LOSER.On Friday I was frantically issuing 1099s to
some of our workers, because I’m such a loser I avoided doing them for this
long. The truth is that I didn’t want to
deal with his workers either.They make
me cry.They miss him so much.They cry to me.Some of them worked for him for a long
time.One of them has been holed up in
his mom’s home for the last 9 months, suffering from agoraphobia and unable to
leave the house.I forget that
this has affected other people.I forget
that, outside of my little cocoon, other people are still missing him and
mourning him.My way of coping is to not
think about it.Not deal with his
stuff.I cleaned his desk out months ago
by just dumping everything into boxes and shoving it in the closet.FAKER.
People keep saying to me 'just bring
the boxes to a CPA'.I wish I could.I wish
filing my taxes meant just gathering W-2s, 1099s and a few other things.We don’t have
those things.We are two self-employed
people.Millions of dollars went in and
out of our accounts over the years because of our businesses.Just so we’re clear…we didn’t MAKE that much
money, it merely passed through.Keeping
track of a messy, uncaring, avoiding and addicted contractor is a nightmare. And so for the last couple years, I avoided
dealing with him too.Today, I vow to start
conquering this nightmare.And if I do,
if I get this all neat and tidy, then,
I will be one awesome motherfucker.Ya
hurd me?I will be the Queen of Awesomeland.

April 9, 2012

We started our Easter morning off in typical fashion.The littlest of the darlings, who ate
crawfish, pizza and chocolate at my brother’s crawfish boil Saturday night,
HURLED all of those things into my bed at 1:25 a.m.The vile smelling vomitus managed to splash
my face, and my boobs.I immediately
began gagging.My nose, she is quite the
champion smeller.I can smell shit from
faraway lands.This is no lie.While gagging, I couldn’t help wondering why
the darling doesn’t chew.We quickly changed sheets, slipped into some
nice, crisp, white, faintly-smelling-of-bleach sheets (heaven!) and went back
to bed.He said he felt fine and was
indeed fine the whole day.He ate candy
for breakfast, lunch and dinner like a champ.Hair of the dog, as they say.

Absent from the day were tears.Not a single tear fell.As I put the candy and gifts into their
baskets Saturday night, I thought of Dave.He always did the baskets.I
remember how wasted he was last Easter, trying to put their candy out.I remember how annoyed and pissed I was.Why couldn’t he just be sober?Normal?I remembered how his voice used to sound, when he was drinking too much
or taking pills.I HATED IT.And I remember how I would always ask him wtf
he was doing?Why did his voice sound
that way?And he would always lie.Such a good liar, he was.Faker.I don’t miss that part.At all.Who would?As I sat there divvying
up the candy, I thought how our marriage was way harder than it needed to
be.We mostly didn’t bring out the best
in one another.I wonder how much is my
fault, how much is his, and how much any of it even really matters now?The only thing that matters to me is that I
never go through bullshit like that again.I never want to be responsible for making another person miserable.I never want to be in a horrible relationship
again.I don’t want to be frustrated and
angry and bored.I don’t want to be left
wanting more and never getting it, and feeling insignificant and taken for
granted.What a waste of me! A waste of the person I am.I want to take every ounce of my wisdom and
courage and strength and humor and awesomeness and hand it to a man who wants it, and loves it, and appreciates it.And I want a big strong hand to lift
me to a higher ground too.I guess we all really start out with those
intentions.I certainly did with
Dave.I did all those things.And he resented every single minute of it.Why?Why do the things that you initially love about someone turn into the
very things you abhor about them?Why
does love turn to hate?I can’t do this
again until I figure that out.Because I
so cannot ever go there again.When I
married Dave, I thought we would be such a good team.I really did.But I never factored into the equation that he would become so resentful
of me.I was about to say the reason he
became resentful is because he changed.But he didn’t change.He was always the person he was.The problem is that person was a
trickster.He tricked me.He tricked me into thinking he was normal.And he wasn’t.He was a sneaky fuck.He pretended to be something he wasn’t.I didn’t change.I’m the same person I was when we got
married. Because if I'm not fucking real, then real does not exist. Ya hurd me? I don’t have regrets though.I’m not living my life that way.

You're so mean,
When you talk, About yourself, You are wrong.
Change the voices, In your head
Make them like you Instead.

So complicated,
Look happy, You'll make it!
Filled with so much hatred
Such a tired game.
It's enough, I've done all I can think of
Chased down all my demons, I've seen you do the same.[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsty.com/pink-perfect-lyrics.html ]

The whole world stares so I swallow the fear,
The only thing I should be drinking is an ice cold beer.
So cool in line and we try, try, try,
But we try too hard, it's a waste of my time.
Done looking for the critics, cause they're everywhere
They don't like my jeans, they don't get my hair
We change ourselves and we do it all the time

April 4, 2012

I’ve been thinking about something for the last few
days.About how I keep saying I’m a shit
magnet.I worried that my declaration,
even in jest, would somehow magnetize even more shit my way.I may have been correct, because we started
popping up sick with the stomach flu right after that.It has involved, you guessed it….SHIT.This is turning into a shit opera.A shit fest.A blog about….shit.However, I do have a genuine belief that I control
my destiny, and perhaps the entire universe, with my thoughts. Of course I’m being silly, but there is merit
to some of it.Someone responded to my
shit magnet post by encouraging me to direct amazing things my way by believing
that I am amazing.As it happens, it was
the exact thought I myself had been pondering for days.

The truth is that I don’t really believe I’m a shit
magnet.I’ve been victim to a fair share
of unfortunate circumstances (fate), but what I know is that I haven’t released
a magnitude of negative energy into the universe because of it.Quite the opposite.I’ve accepted my fate, done a bang up job of spinning it, and released it back. Queen of
spin. I am a positive thinker, and I
genuinely believe that we are surviving as well as we are because we are so
damned sure that things will be awesome.I affirm this to my boys daily.I’ve
said repeatedly that ‘this’ won’t define us.I won’t let it.Of that I am
sure. No one thing will hold us down. Not even a string of many bad things.Because we are survivors.Here is
something I know about survivors.They laugh.They laugh at inappropriate times.They find humor in dark places.They talk about stuff, deep stuff, like it’s
no big deal.Because it’s life.They don’t care, at all, what people
think.No matter what happens, they
believe they control their own destiny.They
hit rock bottom, and immediately begin digging their way out. I’m not talking
about preempting fate…but controlling how
we react to it. Everyone has that power.

At this point in my life, I have very little fear.I know
that things will be ok.I just know they
will.Hand to God.I know deep down we are good
awesomeness personified.I responded to
the poster this morning by saying that I would start directing awesomeness my
way by declaring that we shall be fabulously happy today and every day, my boys
shall have fabulous happy lives and I shall be pursued by dozens of fabulous,
hot, rich men who want to be awesome role models to my boys.That’s a start, right?I’ll report back soon with some awesome
tales.None of which will involve the
word SHIT.

Welcome

The Diary is the truth about surviving the suicide of my 41 year old husband, raising our 3 kids (ages 10,5, and 2) alone, getting robbed and kidnapped the morning of the funeral (seriously, this really happened), and learning how to really live, and even laugh, in spite of it all.